“Maybe your soul is here to make this choice.” A South Korean orphan picked the path less traveled

Chana Bilek’s voice is warm and inviting. As we speak over the phone, I hear the clatter of dishes being washed and the soft voices of children who’ve sneaked out of bed to listen to their mother’s story once again…. It’s a night in the life of a typical Jewish mother. And yet I know that Chana’s life is anything but typical.

Chana, originally Yoon-Hee, was born in South Korea in 1982. When she was a mere two years old, she was given over into the care of an orphanage. She was sickly, and the staff at the orphanage nursed her back to health over several months. They then referred her out for adoption.

Meanwhile, across the world in Virginia, Jack and Marcy Stein* were looking into adopting a child. The Steins were elated when they received word that a little South Korean girl was available for them. With the paperwork complete, they drove up to Baltimore Washington Airport to meet their new daughter.

It was a nervous little Yoon-Hee who came off the plane with her social worker to greet her new parents. Having refused to eat anything but chocolate and water on her long trip, Yoon-Hee immediately threw up all over her new father as she entered their car. Despite the rough introduction, Jack and Marcy turned out to be, in her words, “My caregivers and best friends.”

They named her Caitlin Yoon-Hee Stein, or Caty, and helped her recover from the effects of an impoverished babyhood. Caty’s early childhood was idyllic, as she romped through the woods of rural Virginia, played with her dog, and picked blackberries.

Caty’s parents didn’t hide the fact that she was adopted; with the difference between her looks and theirs, they wouldn’t have been able to. Instead, they encouraged Caty to read picture books about Korea and about adoption. They made Asian food for her and gave her little Asian dolls to play with. She also attended a Korean school for a few years with a good friend, also an adoptee from Korea.

Something Out There

When Caty was five years old, she noticed that her neighborhood friends were busy with something called church. “What church do we go to?” she innocently asked her parents. Well, none really, as her parents were completely secular. Caty’s father Jack was Jewish, but unaffiliated. Her mother, Marcy, was raised Presbyterian, but was also secular. In response to Caty’s query, though, the Steins joined a Unitarian congregation. That went well, until the church hired a new preacher. The Steins grew uncomfortable with the preacher’s extreme focus on the New Testament but weren’t sure how to make a change.

The concept of G-d always resonated with young Caty. “It just made sense to me that there’s something out there, beyond this world,” she explains. As a young child, Caty began speaking to G-d every night. She was also inspired by the movie An American Tail, where Fievel, a “Jewish mouse,” is separated from his family on their journey to America. Fievel is comforted with the realization that both he and his family are looking at the same night sky.

Caty really took to that idea. Her birth mother saw the same moon and stars that she saw. She began sending messages through G-d to her birth mother each night, especially on her birthday. “I was sure my birth mother had to be thinking about me on my birthday.”